Growing Up
by madgirlmuahaha
Summary: Growing up is rarely easy. Some people have to grow up because of impossible decisions, and others have to grow up because of equally impossible circumstances around them. Mia and Maya are two people who were forced to grow up because of these impossible situations.
1. Mia's choice

I was sixteen years old, and the Elders were pressuring me to drop out of school so I could begin my training to be Master of Kurain, because they wanted me to be ready to assume the position as soon as possible after I became of age. I had dreamed of graduating high school at the top of my class, and going to an amazing university and finding an amazing job that would help me find the truth about what happened to my mother. Unfortunately, I was starting my Junior year with no idea about where I wanted to go to college or what I wanted to study, and the empty seat of Kurain Master was most definitely not going to fill itself.

My dreams of finding Mother were just those: dreams. They were fantasies of turning back time to before DL-6. They were impossible goals that I was afraid to move towards in reality. My childish heart may have tried to turn back time, but my adult mind would always convince my heart that these dreams truly were impossible.

I was in the middle of that awkward teenage phase that everybody is aware of, the phase when a teen starts to doubt their hopes for the future and is faced with uncertainty and doubt everywhere. However, I didn't have anybody to bother me about my problems other than Maya and Aunt Morgan, but Maya didn't know what I was going through and I always got a bit uneasy whenever I talked to Aunt Morgan alone. So, instead of shutting myself in, I opened up. I opened my mind, and I tried to think about what Mother would say to me.

I had her face in my head...She opened her mouth... Her lips moved, and sound came out...but it was muffled; muted. I thought I could make out what she was saying to me in my mind, but I couldn't hear her voice at all. It sounded as if she was in a deep slumber and was murmuring something...I remembered what she looked like, I remembered her facial expressions, and I even remembered that large staff-thing she always carried. I remembered all of the visual details, but there was one thing that was missing from my image that I strained so hard to remember...

And then it hit me harder than a brick wall.

Her voice. My mother's voice.

I HAD FORGOTTEN THE SOUND OF MY MOTHER'S VOICE!

It may seem trivial, but a mother's voice is one of the first things an infant experiences in life. It is one of the most soothing, welcoming sounds in the world. And usually it stays with that child during that crucial development period, and it carries throughout childhood and early adulthood...

I don't know when exactly I forgot it, but that's when I realized that I had.

Later that same day, I formally renounced my position as heiress to the title of Master of Kurain and handed it down to my sister. I choose to finish high school and go to Ivy U and become a lawyer, all because I had forgotten the sound of my mother's voice.

You might ask me why I made my life-changing decision because of this lost memory, and if you do ask me this, then it's obvious that you haven't ever forgotten the sound of your own mother's voice.

It's because when you forget the sound of your own mother's voice, you know that it's time to either act or move on, and you need to grow up either way. I simply couldn't move on.


	2. Rude Awakening

I am 17 years old and in jail for a crime I didn't commit.

I don't really understand what was going on. Mia wasn't dead. Mia COULDN'T be dead. She'd promised me that she'd bring justice to the world, a ray of light to our legal system. She wouldn't just abandon me with nothing but a handful of broken promises.

She promised me that when Diego woke up, because she was convinced that he would do so someday, they'd get married and buy a fancy house in the city with my own room for when I came to visit them.

She promised me that when I turned 18, her birthday present to me would be tickets to a live Steel Samurai Action Show.

She promised me that she'd get justice for our mother.

She promised a lot of things that she wasn't able to follow through with.

And now, here I am, a scared, dazed little girl, huddling on the cot in her cell because she's afraid that her own body will disappear and she'll lose contact with the real world, finally slipping into the darkness that is insanity.

Maybe I really did kill my sister. I mean, who would arrest an innocent child for a crime she didn't commit? It's not right, so I must not be innocent...

Prison is really affecting my ability to think straight. Or is it?

I don't know.

I don't know anything. I don't even know if I should or shouldn't doubt myself!

Is this what it feels like to be grown-up?

To not know what's going to happen to you tomorrow?

To be aware that a little girl like you could be a serious suspect in the bludgeoning of her beloved older sister?

To feel so alone, so lost, and so homesick that you feel your heart is about to explode?

Sis' student keeps trying to talk sense into me, but the words he say sound too much like things that Sis would say.

I can't bear it.

But I know I'll have to, because he's going to take my case on anyway. I don't understand why. I mean, I'm being accused of killing his mentor, not just my sister. I only knew Mia as my sis, but I'm pretty sure she was an awesome mentor if she was Mia.

I miss her so much. She'd know what to do.

I don't know the first thing about growing up, but I'm really getting a pretty rude awakening here in prison.


End file.
